You're Not a Monster
by appa-appa-away
Summary: Post 'The Southern Raiders'. Katara is conflicted with her choice to let Yon Rha live. Zuko is conflicted by the thought of watching the people around him kill. Zutara, one-shot.


Author's Note: I started off trying to write something to the prompt of _Alone with the Sea, _but it quickly became something else. Warning: May contain elements of fluff.

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**You're Not a Monster **

Katara sat returned to the wharf after dinner, a strange weight bearing on her chest. The warmth from the sun was absent in the later hour, and the sound of the ocean was immensely loud, like all the voices in her head. _Should I have killed Yon Rha? I don't know if I was too weak to do it, or if I was strong enough not to._ She sighed, a frown creasing her brow as she looked out to the ocean. The waves crashed gently against the shore somewhere not far behind her, and a light spray splashed at her legs as she sat on the edge of the splintering wood. The air around her was cold and she shivered, rubbing her hands against the goose-skin on her arms. She could find no warmth. Even on the inside, Katara felt cold.

"Need some company?"

Katara turned with a start at the sound of the raspy voice. Zuko stood a few feet behind her, shrouded in his red cloak. The sight of him was somehow calming, though it would have had the opposite effect a few days earlier. Katara pressed her lips into a thin line and indicated to the wood next to where she sat before Zuko took joined her.

"You're cold," he noted after a moment.

Katara shrugged. "I'm confused."

"About Yon Rha?"

She nodded. "Did I do the wrong thing, letting him go?"

Zuko scooted closer to her and she felt the warmth of his hand on her back. It was blissful in comparison to the cold. "Do you think you could forgive yourself, if you'd sunk to the level of killing another human being?"

Her brow furrowed again and she closed her eyes, tilting her head against the wind. Zuko's hand didn't leave her back and she could feel his eyes trained on her face. "I don't know. I'm not sure if I really consider him a human being."

His hand left her back and she was completely consumed by the cold again. Zuko leaned back and let out a heavy sigh. "I know. I'm not sure I would either. But he is, even if he did something terrible."

Katara passed him a sidelong glance. "Would you have tried to stop me, if I had tried to kill him?"

"No," he said without hesitation. "He is your demon. Not mine. You have a right to deal with him the way you see fit. Your mother died at his hand. I would have backed you up either way." She regarded him for a moment before looking back out over the ocean. "But if you're asking, I'm glad you didn't," he said.

Katara almost didn't hear him through the thoughts rushing through her head. "Really?" she asked, her voice far away from her mind.

"Really."

She blinked herself back into reality, tearing her eyes from the lapping waves. "Why?" Katara faced him and waited for his answer for a long time.

It took him a moment, gazing out to sea, before he could form an answer he was happy with. "It wouldn't have been you," he said, simply.

"What do you mean?"

Zuko rested back on his hands a little more and breathed another heavy sigh. "I mean… What I said earlier, about sinking to that level." He paused again, thinking. "You might not be able to see him as a human being, but I know that he is. I wasn't as caught up in the moment emotionally, like you were. My mother's murderer has a different name. Yon Rha wasn't personal to my loss."

Katara tilted her head. "I still don't understand."

"I think you lose a part of yourself, when you do something like that; when you take another person's life, no matter how vile they are."

Katara nodded, turning her eyes back to the ocean stretching out before them. "What about when you watch somebody else take a life?"

"It depends who that person is, and whose life they're taking. You're innocent, Katara. You had to grow up too fast, but you're not a monster. And watching you do something monstrous liking killing somebody would have been as bad as killing them myself."

She glanced at him and for a moment, regarded his composure. His shoulders were slightly hunched forward, his head angled forward too far, the muscles in his neck tenser than usual. "You're thinking about when Aang kills your father, aren't you?"

Zuko closed his eyes and gave a single nod. "Aang comes across even more innocent than you. And he's going to kill my father. My father is a monster to me, but he's still human. He's just as mortal as you or I."

"I don't think I could see the Fire Lord as a human being. Sorry," she said, a hint of guilt edging her voice.

Zuko shook his head. "Don't be. Not many people could. I can only just do it, and only because I grew up loving him so much and believing that he was everything good; that I was the monster, because I wasn't good enough for him."

"You're not a monster, Zuko," Katara said, her face turning gentle. For the longest time, he didn't react. Then slowly, he turned his head away from her, the scarred flesh facing out to sea. "You don't believe me, do you?"

The tension in his muscles slacked and she watched his shoulders slump. "No."

Katara moved closer to him, so that she could feel the heat radiating from him in her cold skin. She placed a hand on his back, mimicking the action he'd made earlier. Her other hand slowly reached around to the unscarred side of his face and came to rest on his cheek. She gave a gentle pull and he followed her command, turning to face her again.

Zuko's eyes were sad. It gave Katara a tight feeling in her chest, which felt unpleasant. Her other hand left his back and came to rest on his cheek, her fingertips brushing the edge of his scar. Her eyes darted from one side of his face to the other, searching for something; searching for whatever was broken inside him; searching for something she could heal.

"You're not a monster, Zuko," she said again, conviction breaking through her voice.

"I've made a lot of mistakes."

She shook her head. "You're human. Just like me." One hand slipped away, from the unscarred side of his face. She shifted her other hand up to touch the marred flesh under his eye properly. It was the second time she'd touched this part of him, and she knew that she was making contact with something that ran deeper than scars and skin. "If you weren't, you wouldn't have made the right choices in the end," she said.

He closed his eyes for a moment. Katara tried not to show her shock when he pressed his face closer against her hand, or when his hand came up to hold hers against the scar. "Thank you, Katara," he said.

Zuko opened his eyes and stared at her, still holding her skin against his scar. She felt the way he searched her, looking for something inside her, just as she had searched for something inside him.

"We're human."

Katara's face broke into a soft smile; her eyes alight with innocence and hope. Zuko couldn't stop himself from smiling back. It wasn't until her face was only an inch from his that either of them realized they were leaning in so close. They stopped for a moment, reality catching up to them. But Zuko was still pressing her hand against his face, and her eyes were shining with a mixture of excitement and fear. A faint blush touched her cheeks.

Zuko closed his eyes and leaned his head forward, closing the gap between them, and pressing a soft kiss against her lips.

When he pulled away, he let her hand go and looked back out to sea. A part of him expected her to be angry with him. But no anger came, and instead, Katara leaned her head against his shoulder and looked over the water with him.

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Author's Note: Hope you enjoyed. Please leave a review.


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